This invention relates to the rotary printing machines, and more specifically to delivery and collecting apparatus for rotary machines for making books or magazines.
The present invention may be the most advantageously used in rotary printing machines for books or magazines with the provision for the collection of booklets into stacks with subsequent compression thereof.
At present, the roll rotary machines for printing books or magazines are provided with delivery and collecting apparatus receiving the printed and folded sheets in the form of booklets. This apparatus comprises a system of conveyors for collecting and moving the booklets, which are positioned vertically with the folded edge up, and mechanisms for dividing these booklets into a succession of stacks. In order to collect the booklets into stacks and keep them in the stacks, rigid boards are manually inserted in between these stacks, and the apparatus is provided with a vertically rotatable press located downstream of the conveyors for receiving the stacks separated by the boards and for subsequent rotation thereof at 90.degree., whereby the stacks are positioned vertically.
Such an arrangement ensures the reliable stacking of booklets, but it uses manual labor for inserting the rigid boards therebetween to collect the stack. In addition, the employment of a rotatable press and mechanism for collecting the booklets into stacks makes the arrangement more complicated and requires a larger production area.
The arrangement may be made simplier and more compact by using a delivery and collecting device comprising a folder and two spiders mounted under the folder, the printed and folded articles, such as booklets, being alternately fed to said spiders by means of a driven switch. A receiving bin is mounted under each of the spiders for collecting horizontally positioned booklets into vertical stacks, and each of the bins is provided with a driven moveable or sinkable bottom for transferring the resulting stack to a discharge conveyor.
While this arrangement dispenses with the employment of a rotatable press and mechanism for the separation of booklets into a succession of stacks, it is efficient in the rotary machines for printing newspapers only. This is due to the fact that when using such an arrangement in the machines for printing books or magazines, manual labor is still required for inserting rigid boards to collect a stack of booklets and to compress it. Furthermore, the discharge conveyor cannot ensure a reliable discharge of a relatively high stack occurring in collecting the parts of a book or magazine.
It is an object of the invention to provide a delivery and collecting apparatus for rotary machines for printing books or magazines which enables the mechanization of feeding the rigid boards used to collect parts of a book or magazine into stacks.
An important object of the invention is to provide a delivery and collecting apparatus which ensures the reliable discharge of relatively high stacks.
Still another object of the invention is to provide a delivery and collecting arrangement having a simple and compact construction.
These and other objects are accomplished due to the fact that in a delivery and collecting apparatus for a rotary machine for printing books or magazines comprising: a folder; two spiders mounted under the folder; the printed and folded articles being alternately fed to the spiders by means of a driven switch receiving bins for stacking said articles said bins being mounted in series, one after another, in the direction of the stack movement, each mounted under each of said spiders; and each bin having a driven sinkable bottom for transferring the resulting stack to a discharge conveyor. According to the invention, each of the bins is provided with a slot in one of the side walls thereof for feeding rigid boards therein, each board being placed over and beneath the stack being collected, and there being provided magazines for said boards having driven pushers for feeding the boards one-by-one into each of the bins, and the drive of each pusher is coupled to the drive of said switch in such a manner that during the collection of a stack, the boards are fed into each bin one-by-one at time intervals corresponding to the filling time of the bin, and the discharge conveyor is provided with pallets for receiving the resulting stack from each of said bottoms, each pallet comprising a corrugated strip having uniformly spaced corrugations of rectangular shape.
This embodiment of the apparatus dispenses with manual labor due to the use of a magazine for rigid boards and a pusher for feeding the boards one-by-one, whereby the mechanical placing of said boards is ensured over and beneath the stack being collected, respectively.
In addition, the employment of the receiving pallets in the discharge conveyor, each comprising a corrugated strip, ensures the reliable discharge of the stacks.
In order to simplify the structure of the arrangement, each pusher for rigid boards preferably comprises a slide bar rigidly connected to a toothed rack meshing with a pinion for reciprocating movement so that a single board is ejected from said magazines by the slide bar during one stroke of the toothed rack. In order to ensure the stability of the stack being collected, the bottom of the second bin is connected to the rear wall thereof by means of telescopic tubes so that the tubes of a greater diameter are located in said wall, and the ends of the tubes of a smaller diameter are fixed to the bottom.
These telescopic tubes support the stack being collected during the lowering of the bottom of this bin thus maintaining the stability of the stack.
According to the invention, the first bin is further provided with a stop for the stack being collected, said stop being fixed to the rear wall of this bin and intended for maintaining the stack during the lowering of the bottom of this bin.
In order to ensure the reliable discharge of a comparatively high stack, such as of the order of 50 cm, two superposed closed-loop horizontal conveyors are preferably provided at either side of the discharge conveyor, the conveyors having plates supporting the stack, the height of the plates being at least equal to the height of the stack being discharged.